Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 12:16 pm Post subject: Re: When will they ever learn? U.S. muscle cars for 2009
camaro wrote:
If I want to drive a car dictateted by the gov or someone else , I'll move to a communist country.
You drive on roads designed, built and maintained by the government, and your only concern is your free choice of what to drive on them?
Talk about irony. The interstate highway system is the largest communist project ever undertaken, and it seems to make gearheads like yourself quite happy. _________________ "The people have spoken, the bastards." Mark Twain
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
H.L. Mencken
Joined: Apr 17, 2005 Posts: 2563 Location: Vancouver Island
Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:59 pm Post subject: Re: When will they ever learn? U.S. muscle cars for 2009
camaro wrote:
the goverment is the last thing I want telling me how to live my life or how to have fun.
I actually agree. Government shouldn't be forcing high mileage vehicles down everyone's throats. Government should simply get out of the way and let the market work. When we hit $10/gallon if someone really wants to drop $50 to drive 100 miles thats their choice. Of course I do believe the US gov should be taxing gas at a more reasonable rate to cover some of the expenses involved in burning gas.
Back on topic, it looks like the highend versions of these cars are very limited production models. There probably is a market for them at that level. The problem is the millions of other people that can't find anything domestic that makes sense to buy. Thats why these companies bleed cash. _________________ shame on us, doomed from the start
god have mercy on our dirty little hearts
Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 7:13 pm Post subject: Re: When will they ever learn? U.S. muscle cars for 2009
A reply to what this post was about,, [will they ever lean, the big 3]
If you think they are only selling these to rich people you are wrong,, they need to sell thousands of these HP cars to make the profit the big 3 needs,, American auto makers are so slow at learning what is really needed in the very very near future with our autos and gas price,, 50-100 mpg is what is going to sell fast in the next few years and the ever so big 3 that is having money problems and still making HP cars and 15 mpg SUV's are going to find them selves in a big money hurt and way behind the ball,, its almost as if they are destroying the compaines,, maybe they want to file for bankrupecy so they cant get rid of the union and all those retirees to make a better come back..
I myself like fast and own a RV but all my future auto purchases will be fuel efficient,, I have grown up and its time to move a head, I just wish the big 3 would wise up and get a clue before there sells dry up,, maybe thats why there sells are down 15% today,, it seems that most of the new car lots here in Las Vegas have lots of suv's and big trucks,, I cant figure is there people still buying these big gas guzzlers or are they just sitting there hopeing the gas will go down and fools will rush in.....
Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:53 pm Post subject: Re: When will they ever learn? U.S. muscle cars for 2009
emersonbiggins wrote:
camaro wrote:
If I want to drive a car dictateted by the gov or someone else , I'll move to a communist country.
You drive on roads designed, built and maintained by the government, and your only concern is your free choice of what to drive on them?
Talk about irony. The interstate highway system is the largest communist project ever undertaken, and it seems to make gearheads like yourself quite happy.
Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 3:23 am Post subject: Re: When will they ever learn? U.S. muscle cars for 2009
camaro wrote:
In response to the cars they have in europe most countries won't allow any mods to the vehicles that were not stock. We have a different auto culture here in the states and the goverment is the last thing I want telling me how to live my life or how to have fun.
Yeah, Europe has greater population density so strict emissions laws are needed to minimize health problems. Some places in the states have lower density where pollution isn't a problem and/or just don't care if the public suffers from increased cancer rates and all that.
camaro wrote:
My '06 Charger with a 5.7 HEMI gets 22 to 25 mile per gal. Thats better than alot of cars today. Oh I drive about 4500 miles a month on average so the mpg ratings are pretty accurate.
Whoo boy! $8000+ per year in fuel costs. You got money to burn. Literally! _________________
Jack English wrote:
What's the worst that could happen? We flood some cities, and destroy the food chain? Learn to swim, and eat fucking rocks people. Swim, and eat rocks.
Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject: Re: When will they ever learn? U.S. muscle cars for 2009
Musclecars wouldn't be so bad on gasoline if some attention were paid to weight, aerodynamics, and gearing. All of these things could be done without effecting looks, ride quality, ect., while still improving performance parameters.
The classic Dodge Charger Daytonas and Plymouth Superbirds had a 0.28 drag coefficient. The average car sold in the US today is around a 0.32, and the most aerodynamic car currently sold in the US, the Toyota Prius, is a 0.26!
We could still have a musclecar body with a Cd in the 0.16-0.18 range, and with a V8, it would probably get close to 40 mpg highway...
Couple that with a V8 turbodiesel(eg. Audi A8, 350 hp, 40 mpg, 5,000 lbs, 0.26 Cd), and you could have a high mpg screamer that does 0-60 mph in 4 seconds and gets highway fuel economy to rival that of the Toyota Prius...
Nevermind the performance possibilities an electric drive would bring. The era of the electric musclecar could have begun in the 1990s if the auto industry wanted to make EVs.
Of course, Detroit isn't going to do that anytime soon. They rather like rationing out advancements as slowly as possible so that they can maximize profit on each tiny incremental improvement. Leapfrogging the technology to what we currently have today would mean they'd have to do some more R&D in the future, and the high fuel economy of such cars would be bad for all of those oilies investing in the auto industry, where the resurging profitability in the auto sector would still not be nearly as much money as the money lost in the oil sector from reduced oil sales...
Quote:
Our "high" standard of living in the USA peaked around 1970,,,,,,,,,,,,,,that's what happened.
Since 1970, productivity per capita in the U.S. has about doubled. Yet, now both parents have to work for a lower living standard than the previous generation enjoyed with only one parent working!
Guess where all that extra wealth generated went? The top 1% wealthiest of the world's population now own 40% of the wealth and account for 32% of the world's resource consumption, more than the bottom 90%(that bottom 90% which still includes half of the world's middle class!).
That is where the bulk of the problem rests: society's elite. They are consuming too much, and still want more. The middle class gets much more of the blame than it should.
Joe Sixpack isn't the one with an ecological footprint so large that if everyone lived like them, they'd need 90 planet Earths. J6P in the U.S. has an ecological footprint of about 4.5 planet Earths if everyone lived like them, and close to that living standard could be retained on perhaps 2 planet Earths if everyone lived like them once all of the innefficiencies of this society used by society's elite to extract wealth from J6P were done away with.
Even in a near-depression, sales of luxury yachts, automobiles by the likes of Maybach, Bentley, BMW, and Porsche, and multi-million dollar homes keep rising. _________________ The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the old growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder. ~Thomas Jefferson
Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:56 am Post subject: Re: When will they ever learn? U.S. muscle cars for 2009
camaro wrote:
If I want to drive a car dictateted by the gov or someone else , I'll move to a communist country.
When it gets to the point where there are actual shortages of gas, you can bet that the government will be rationing how much gas we can buy regardless of how much money we have on hand. It's just too vital a commodity to allow gas to burn up in a Camaro or a Vette rather than an ambulance or a farm tractor. When that day comes, people are going to just have to paint racing stripes down a Prius and learn to love 14" rims.
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 2:12 pm Post subject: Re: When will they ever learn? U.S. muscle cars for 2009
I overheard two visitors a couple of years ago at work talking about their rental cars and one asked how the other liked his Saturn (likely the one with the 2.4 liter engine). He replied that it was "underpowered". The other guy said that yeah, he had driven one before and agreed that it was underpowered.
There is a commercial that has run recently where two guys are standing in their adjoining driveways and the one is listing the attributes of his car and comparing them to another car (which happens to be what the other neighbor drives). One of the pluses for the car that is being marketed is that it has a bigger, higher horsepower engine.
Then there was the time I suggested that a young woman I worked with get the Toyota I was driving - for me it was perfect, cheap and great gas mileage. But she said that she wanted something "with more guts".
I wonder how long it will take before this love horsepower for rapid acceleration is is replaced with a love of fuel economy.
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